Few in La Verne have heard of the Torrey family, but a century ago Torrey’s General Store stood on Arrow Highway near “D” Street in Lordsburg. In the 1880’s, Luther and Susan Torrey lived in a sod house in Kansas. They ran a general store, farmed, and raised six children. They were very religious and hard-working. When Luther and his son Martin heard wonderful stories about Southern California, they came west on the Santa Fe Railroad. In San Dimas, they bought land to build homes. Luther built a house at the northwest corner of today’s Cienega and Cataract. It was later known as the Rouse House. Martin built the first of three houses which stood on the southwest corner of Bonita and Walnut.Luther built a general store in the business district of Lordsburg, on Arrow Highway just off D Street, then sent word to his wife to sell the Kansas store and bring the family west.The Torreys planted fruit trees on land Martin bought on the northeast corner of Bonita and Walnut, and on San Dimas Canyon Road. When the trees bore fruit, it was dried, packed and taken by wagon to a store in north Pomona across from the Santa Fe depot to ship east. The Lordsburg store did rather well, selling just about everything for the home and farm. People could buy on credit, paying as soon as they had money. Luther’s son Albert helped in the store, and was Lordsburg Postmaster for two years. Seeing that citrus grew well, Martin Torrey replaced his fruit trees with small orange and lemon trees from the R. M. Teague nursery. These had to be irrigated regularly with water brought down from the mountains in ditches.He and his wife Jane raised five sons – Raymond, Earl, Tevis, Kenneth and Guy . The boys were still small when Lordsburg College invited people in surrounding towns to a family picnic day. By now Martin Torrey owned a Buick touring car, so Jane fixed enough food for several families and everyone piled into the car. They arrived to find at least twenty other automobiles there, most touring cars. The college had games such as potato sack races, and awarded prizes. Later the women put the food on the tables for lunch and visiting. There were more games for the kids while the tables were cleared and the men showed off their cars to each other.After Jane Torrey passed away, Martin assigned tasks to their five boys. Raymond took over household duties of cooking, cleaning, washing and shopping. Earl finished his second year at Bonita high school, then helped his father in work to make a living for the family. Tevis had the job of looking after his two younger brothers; they fed the chickens, rabbits, cow and horses, milked the cows, churned butter, and tended the garden. By the 1920’s Martin’s enthusiasm for automobiles led him to speed. He bought a Model T Ford which he souped up by installing a special “Rajo” unit. Each Saturday his family piled into the car and roared through La Verne to go shopping in Pomona.Torrey always drove too fast and was soon involved in a running battle with La Verne Speed Control Officers Epperson and Hayden, who could not stop him from speeding. The Torrey children were a bit scared and watched to see if the police car was gaining. This went on for months. The officers told him one day they would catch him and throw the book at him. One evening in Pomona, Martin told his sons that he would stop for the police. He did so. They gave him a ticket, then wanted to know what he had under the hood. They seemed a bit disappointed that he had stopped, so the next week he outran them again! He would drive by the police station and honk so they knew another chase was underway. Torrey’s market is now long gone. The Martin House, home of the San Dimas Chamber of Commerce, now stands on the site of the Torrey home. *********** ******* Drawn from an account written by Luther’s daughter Nadine.

When you next drive along Arrow Highway, look north just east of E Street and you’ll see the former Sunkist packing house. It is now a University administrative building. A large mural depicting a citrus label – La Verne Mutual Citrus Association – faces the railroad tracks.

A high cooling structure stood on the roof of the squarish building at the east end. Water once dripped down through layers of planks as part of ice manufacturing. Lines of boxcars were drawn up alongside the building, and trapdoors opened in their roofs. A chute below the cooling tower poured a stream of crushed ice down into the boxcars and workers packed it around crates of oranges and lemons.

It made sense to ship California-grown produce east. Railroad companies were given free quarter-sections of federal land on either side of the tracks in return for putting the tracks through. They plotted out land, and turned it over to farmers as an inducement to settle. Their produce was sent back to eastern cities by rail, and industrial goods went west to the growing agricultural communities.

This strategy of settlement proved successful in the Midwest. Grain was hardy and could be shipped by rail. Shipping of cattle and hogs in cattle cars turned Omaha and Chicago into slaughterhouses for the world.

Shipping produce from California proved more difficult. It was not simply a matter of wheeling boxes into boxcars and stacking it. Anything shipped had to be non perishable!

Our local settlers first planted wheat and oats, easily shipped to Los Angeles. Oats were a staple for the thousands of horses which pulled wagons and buggies. Wheat went to flour mills, then bakeries to be made into bread, cakes, pastries, and tortillas.

The next step was to plant plum trees and other fruit trees. The fruit was dried and packed into wooden boxes for shipment. (It is said that some packers stomped prunes into boxes using their bare feet!) When I. W. Lord sold the Lordsburg Hotel, he included several blocks of plum trees in the deal.

In 1890 Lordsburg agriculturists W. Scott Romick and Marcus L. Sparks set out acres of orange trees. Citrus fruit, protected by a hardy skin, and packed in wooden crates, fared well in transcontinental shipment. It soon became a Christmas tradition to reward children in the Midwest with what was regarded as an exotic fruit - a real orange - when they dove into chimney-hung stockings.

Several of the first attempts to ship other perishable produce by train ended in disaster. An entrepreneur in central California had several boxcars packed full of boxed lettuce which was covered with ice. When they were sent across the Sierra Nevada, the train was stalled in a late snow and the ice melted. All the lettuce became mush and had to be dumped, but growers kept trying.

The next step in long-distance shipping of produce was that railroads and growers cooperatives built a series of ice houses across the continent. By the 1920’s, cold air from icehouses in San Bernardino was pumped into refrigerated boxcars known as "refers." These were immediately sent to sidings near packing houses in Los Angeles, San Diego, Escondito, and Corona, and the emerging citrus centers – Ontario, Claremont, La Verne, and San Dimas.

Warehouse workers stacked boxes of citrus fruit on dollies and trundled them into the boxcars. Each car was topped off with crushed ice poured through trapholes in the roof, and trains pulled them east. Every 200 miles, the trains pulled onto sidings with icehouses so more ice could be loaded into the refers.

Refrigerated trains, ships and air freighter were eventually used. By the 1960’s, La Verne oranges were seen as far abroad as bazaars in Hong Kong, where shoppers snapped them up as gifts for Chinese New Year.

La Verne’s orange-packing days have long since gone, but traces remain at the old Sunkist packinghouse between E and F Streets, now rebuilt as a facility for the University of La Verne.

Trucks full of orange lugs once backed up to a long unloading platform on the north side of the building. The dock is still there but rubber bumpers to prevent damage have been removed. The large cooling tower to make ice was taken down. Much of the loading platform along the tracks remains.

High on the building, you can still see a framed opening about a foot square. This is where the chute once funneled tons of crushed ice down to thousands of boxcars during La Verne’s days as "Heart of the Orange Empire." – GB

The Historical Society of La Verne / Save Old La Verne’s Environment is always interested in stories, photos, and memorabilia from our past. We have four meetings each year, and an August potluck. Contact us at HS/SOLVE, P.O. 7761, La Verne, CA 91750, (909) 593-5014, or dgbeery@ aol.com.

A Pennsylvanian educator who came to California more than a hundred years ago left an enduring legacy for La Verne.

He brought his family here, kept a college going, and built a rather solid home. The saga began in 1887 when I.W. Lord, a Los Angeles entrepreneur, bought land from Hispanic ranchers, and had it surveyed and divided into building lots. It was the time of ‘boom towns’ sited near the railroad lines

That May, bands went up and down streets in Los Angeles and Riverside telling of a land auction. Potential buyers took a free train ride here to enjoy a barbeque and bid on building lots for the new town of Lordsburg, which Lord modestly named after himself.

Part of the promotion was to build a large hotel on the block south of 3rd and west of D streets. It was, of course, named the Lordsburg Hotel, but as the real estate boom soon collapsed, the hotel never had a paying guest. Lord and his backers were left with a white elephant on their hands.Several years later, members of a church known as the German Baptist Brethren bought the large building and opened Lordsburg College, actually more of an academy. Teachers and students lived in the large structure where classes were taught.

In 1902, after some ups and downs and great personal sacrifice, the trustees had to close the school. Some income had come from the church, which rented an assembly room for services, but this ended when they built a church at the corner of 4th and E streets.

W. C. Hanawalt, a school superintendent in Pennsylvania, heard about the situation, and took a train to Lordsburg to see if he could help. He saw reopening the institution as a challenge and convinced the trustees that he could do it.

Hanawalt went back to Pennsylvania and resigned his position there, then returned to Lordsburg in September 1902 with his wife, two children, and a young teacher named Grace Hileman, who became famous as Grace Miller.

Hanawalt leased the Lordsburg College for six years. He cleaned and repaired the building, organized a curriculum emphasizing secondary education, and provided dynamic leadership. He revitalized the institution. Without his backing and leadership the school may not have survived.

Hanawalt bought land for a home across from the college. His half-brothers Russell, Ross, and Harvey joined him in Lordsburg and used a cast-iron hand-operated machine to make concrete blocks for construction.

The home was one of the earliest private homes in California to be built of such blocks. It is two-story, with a wide porch to the north and east, and a hexagonal tower at the northwest corner.

Hanawalt enjoyed running the college. He was piqued when the lease ended and trustees decided to turn the work over to the church district. Lordsburg College became La Verne College, and is now the University of La Verne.

Hanawalt rented out the house in 1908 and moved. His wife passed away and he remarried, farmed and served as a federal loan appraiser.

Two similar homes were built in Chino and McFarland using the concrete block machine.

Harvey and J. Ross Hanawalt became leading contractors. Many of the homes here have foundations built of their concrete ‘Hanawalt blocks.’ The two supplied cement and construction expertise when the church group built the enormous Church of the Brethren in 1930.Hanawalt farmed in Pennsylvania for ten years, coming back in 1945 to retire here. He remained interested in the college, but still rankled at his treatment. He passed away in 1953.

His wife Pearl lived in the home another twenty years, then sold it to the University of La Verne. It served as a child care center, then campus offices.

A bronze historical marker was ready to site when in December 2004, the historic old home caught fire and was badly damaged.

Our community solidly backed the decision of university officials to restore the structure for office use. Restoration is now complete. The building is ready for another hundred years.

Early in May the Hanawalt House is scheduled to be reopened. The bronze marker will be placed to honor the home and its builder.

W. C.’s nephews Wayne, Clair, and Dwight Hanawalt and others of the large Hanawalt clan should be at the ceremony.

It will be a time to look back and pay tribute to W. C. Hanawalt and the accomplishments of the Hanawalt families in La Verne.

– Your La Verne Historical Society is always interested in photos, writings, and memorabilia of historical Lordsburg-LaVerne. Meetings are held four times per year. Contact us at dgbeery@aol.com or (909) 593-5014.

Life was tough during the Great Depression. Jobs were hard to find. People looked for anything to survive and helped each other out. Fred Brunk was one of those without a job. He graduated from La Verne College in 1933 as a teacher, but all local positions were filled. The City of La Verne or the school district could only hire him and another man as playground supervisors.

The co-worker had lost his job as an accountant in Chicago in 1931, and brought his family to California in a house trailer. They camped for months near Hooverville, a town of shanties built on forest land at the East Fork of the San Gabriel River. People lived in ramshackle structures with canvas roofs made water repellent by using gasoline mixed with melted wax. Many panned for gold.

"Camp Bonita" was on the fire road at a bridge across the river. It wasn’t much - a pool hall with a leaky roof and a little general store to the east, and a small Ranger’s cabin to the west.

The couple from Chicago now lived in La Verne at a home on 5th Street. Reatha, Fred’s fiancé, lived next door. She was hanging out clothes with the co-worker’s wife one day when mention was made of a possible teaching job at Camp Bonita. It was in the La Verne Heights school system, but the road was unsafe for a bus. School had been held in the pool hall the winter before.

Fred and Reatha drove up to Camp Bonita and found the guard of an honor prison camp there pushing hard for a school. He had his own five children and there were nine more in the camp.

Brunk took a list of children to the office of the County Superintendent of Schools, but could never get an appointment. The principal at Lincoln finally gave him the man’s home address in Pasadena. Fred and Reatha drove there, parked near his driveway, and waited.

When the superintendent came home, Fred talked to him and was told that if he had students and a school at Camp Bonita, the county would find funds to hire him. But the county had no money to build a school, and classes could not be held in the pool hall!

Fred borrowed some money, bought secondhand lumber from the La Verne Lumber Company, and a friend trucked it up to Camp Bonita. He began teaching classes under a Live Oak tree, (the Forest Service gave him permission to hang a flag in the tree), and the fathers of the students built a school on a large sandbar. It was multi-colored as many boards used for the building had been painted yellow or red, purple, green and even black, so it was called "The Calico School."

Christmas, 1933, was celebrated with help from a couple named Edwards, part time residents of the canyon. A tree from the canyon hillside was set up in the school, and the children and their mothers decorated it with precious hoarded ornaments. The wealthy South Pasadena Womens’ Club donated gifts. A trusty at the prison camp, an embezzler and claimed heir to the Guggenheim millions, played Santa. He was assisted by the prison guard.. Another father brought his guitar and a mother played her violin. Someone else had a saxophone, and a male quartet from La Verne College showed up. The evening was spent singing and enjoying cookies, coffee and hot cocoa.

During the winter, Fred and his mother lived in the Ranger’s cabin. He taught and became part-time ranger. He issued permits so canyon folk could cut dead trees for firewood and hunting permits so they could shoot deer, mountain lions, coyotes and jackrabbits.

Fred and Reatha married in June, 1934.

The worst days of the Depression were past by 1935, and government funds came through to build San Gabriel Dam. All the ‘canyon dads’ were hired, but had to move their families out of the canyon. The Brunks were hired as teachers elsewhere.

As the school was no longer needed, it was torn down. The lumber was trucked back to La Verne and used to build a chicken coop that stood for years on an alley east of A Street.

It’s not definite, but the sway-backed old garage still there could be what remains of the Calico School which a school teacher got built so he could live through hard times.

— Adapted from memoirs of Reatha Brunk. Your historical society is always interested in writings, photos, and memorabilia of Lordsburg and La Verne. Meetings are held four times per year. Contact us at dgbeery@aol.com or (909) 593-5014.

Way back in 1884 American writer Helen Hunt Jackson wrote a novel of the waning Spanish days of California, a heart-tugging Victorian romance. She named it "Ramona" after her heroine.

Mrs. Jackson ardently supported the Indians, and wrote vivid descriptive passages. She passed away a year later in her eighties, and never knew that her work would be widely read and become an American classic.

It was immensely successful, with wonderful details of life as it was. According to a publisher, the book went through several editions and over 135 printings, became a stage play, and was produced as a motion picture. The idea of an opera probably fell through, but the story has became famous as the Ramona Pageant put on by the townspeople of Hemet.

The tale revolves around a part-Indian girl, Ramona, who is placed in the care of Senora Moreno, owner of a hacienda near Santa Barbara. She grows up with Felipe, Senora Moreno’s son, whom she considers as a brother.

The Indians from Temecula were sheepherders, and every year traveled to the great Spanish ranchos to do the sheep-shearing. One of them, Allesandro, falls in love with Ramona, and she with him. Unbeknown to Senora Moreno - who would be dead set against it – they elope one night and head southeast to be married by a priest and then join Allesandro’s people.

How does Ramona figure into our history?

The editor of one of the first newspapers here, the "La Verne News," found news hard to come by after he set up his printshop, but he had read the book. In his second issue, of March 29, 1888, he drew upon the story to fill a column with details.

His La Verne was not our La Verne of today, but a little community of a dozen or so houses built between Lordsburg (now La Verne), and Mud Springs (San Dimas), on what is now Sedalia Street. The town did not benefit by having a station on the Santa Fe railroad, and quietly folded, leaving only its name, which was adopted by Lordsburg in 1917.

According to the editor of 1888, the story of Ramona was local to that La Verne in some particulars.

When the Indians traveled through this area, they were shy and avoided well-known roads as much as possible, taking their own "Indian trail" near the foothills. It ran from Indian Hill to the San Gabriel River and the Arroyo Secco where Pasadena now stands. There are similarities to Horsethief Canyon.

The trail, according to the editor, was the north boundary of La Verne, and known as Irving street.

When Ramona and Allesandro eloped from the Moreno hacienda, they fled on her horse Baba and an Indian pony, accompanied by a dog, and took this trail through the mountains to avoid pursuers.

One night the two made camp in the San Dimas Arroyo, just above La Verne, on the bank of the ancient flood plain. The description roughly identifies the area south of the intersection of Foothill and Baseline at the border of San Dimas and La Verne.

Author Jackson did not offend the sensibilities of her prim readers who might wonder about two young people at a campsite. She wrote that while Ramona slept, Allesandro stayed awake all night keeping watch. They left the next morning.

The foster brother, Felipe, came searching for Ramona but took the Spanish road to the south.

Jackson took some liberties in her work – it is definitely not just a three or four day ride from Santa Barbara to Temecula. But the trip through, and that newspaper story, led citizens of the original La Verne to honor Jackson’s primary characters with street names

Allesandro and Ramona avenues still exist, as does a short street named for the strong-willed Senora Moreno.

La Verne also has Ramona Middle School, attended by over a thousand students. They have no statue or monument to the heroine, but they may take pride in a name that harks back to our Indian and Spanish cultural heritage.

—– The La Verne Historical Society is always interested in photos, writings, and memorabilia of historical Lordsburg-La Verne. Meetings are held fouir times per year. Contact us at dgbeery@aol.com or (909) 593-5014

The establishment of a Protestant church in the largely Catholic Hispanic community in Lordsburg came about with the help of a much appreciated lady we know as Grace Miller.

She had a long, abiding commitment to helping people in our town and made a special effort each Christmas.

As Grace Hileman, she was told never to return to her father’s home in Pennsylvania. He was a staunch Presbyterian and had found that while taking a teacher training course she had joined the local Brethren church. She came to what was then Lordsburg in 1902 to possibly teach in the Lordsburg Academy/College.

Grace found employment as a clerk in J. L. Miller’s general store. She married him in 1904 in a ceremony conducted by W. C. Hanawalt.

Grace Miller was soon a pillar of the Lordsburg church of the German Baptist Brethren, and became Sunday School superintendent. The church - now our Church of the Brethren - strongly supported missions, not only in foreign countries, but at home and had a Chinese mission in Los Angeles. Grace had the mission spirit and held English classes in her home for many Japanese grove workers.

She was particularly interested the immigrants who lived in “Mexican Town” south of the Santa Fe railroad tracks. It was not a wealthy neighborhood. She did her home mission work here, and each Christmas went to homes taking toys and games, one for each child.

‘Grandma’ Francisca Rodriquez held Bible study in her home. In 1917 Grace Miller helped her start a church.

All the ministers in town helped with donations for an old home which was remodeled. Services in this Emmanuel Presbyterian Mexican Church were held by Rev. Sotero Mageno for three years. When it was destroyed by fire, the Millers provided a house they owned at 1835 2nd St. for Rev. Mageno and the church services.

Every December a Christmas party was held at on the porch and front yard of this “Mexican Mission.” Students of the Mission Band at La Verne College helped.

The Christmas festivities of 1920 were described by Rev. Mageno, whom Grace Miller quoted in an magazine article.

“I thank our great God for this Spanish-American Christmas. Once more the Mexican and the American Christians of La Verne united their activities to serve the Lord. It was 1:30 P.M. when the good sister, Grace Miller with the assistance of Senor Mageno began to distribute Christmas treats and toys to the Mexican children. There followed pinataes, baseball, and supervised play. Next we served a supper of Mexican and American dishes. Some of our American brothers, for the first time in their lives, ate Spanish bunuelos. An American girl noticed that some of the Mexicans were too timid to come up for their plates, and carried supper to them.

“At last the Christmas program, came, which pleased very much the spectators, who were over 300 in number.”

“Later it was a surprise to the Mexican people when they heard the American young people sing the Angel Chorus in Spanish.”

“Another thing which the Mexicans admired was the Christmas star which flashed intermittently from the mission roof. They also liked the words ‘Dios es Amor’ (God is Love) which appeared in the cradle instead of a baby. The designing and lighting of the cradle were the work of our brother Eulugio Perez, who comes far to assist in the Mexican Mission.”

“The treats were furnished by the Beginners and Primary Departments of the Sunday-School and the Intermediate Christian Workers. The toys were the gifts of Bro. and Sister Chas. Eshelman. Pauline Shirk led out in supervised play. Approximately one hundred and seventy Mexican children were present during the afternoon.”

Mrs. Miller took pride in relating these Christmas activities, and summed up with “The King of Glory only knows who was the happier – the Americans or the Mexicans.”

We have long since become one community - no longer termed the ‘Americans,’ or ‘Mexicans.’

Grace Miller has passed on, but memories of her goodwill such as this Christmas of 1920 are why we now have a school named after her.

]]>lvcn@lavernecommunitynews.com (Galen Berry)HistoryFri, 14 Nov 2008 09:26:33 -0800La Verne Streets Under Water During the Great Flood of 38http://www.lavernecommunitynews.com/index.php/history/230-la-verne-streets-under-water-during-the-great-flood-of-38
http://www.lavernecommunitynews.com/index.php/history/230-la-verne-streets-under-water-during-the-great-flood-of-38

Seventy years ago, La Verne residents experienced what is still called ‘The Great Flood of ‘38’.

A huge storm front of dark clouds stalled over the San Gabriels late in February. It rained all day on Tuesday, March 1 and kept up the next day as flood waters poured down from the mountains.

The Pacific Electric streetcars which ran through the south part of La Verne stopped service on Wednesday morning, March 2 when a bridge washed out near the Fairgrounds. Passengers had to take Motor Transit company buses.

Railroad work crews began trying to repair the Southern Pacific railroad tracks in Pomona but early in the afternoon service stopped: 400 to 600 feet of track was four feet under water flooding down from San Antonio Canyon.

All roads between Pomona and Los Angeles were closed. A slide on Kellogg hill closed all but one lane of traffic. Bridges were out.

Flood waters kept rising in channels throughout the Pomona valley. Flood control engineers asked Pomona police to broadcast over station KNFJ their request that officers help evacuate homes along the San Antonio wash from Claremont to Chino.

The Salvation Army took in some evacuees: others found shelter in the Fox Theatre. A small army of rescue workers and flood fighters helped a colony of citrus workers trapped by the waters. There was extensive property damage to homes and groves.

Headlines in the Wednesday evening edition of the Progress-Bulletin screamed ‘Five Dead in Southland Rainstorm: Flood Loss in Excess of Million" The news was premature: more reports of death and losses all across the Los Angeles basin kept coming in,

La Verne’s several flood control channels were then just deep ditches. Small dams north of town were soon overwhelmed by the amount of water pouring out of the foothills.

One channel at the corner of the Evergreen ranch, south of today’s Bonita High School, ran through a culvert. This was soon blocked by debris and water began flowing south on D Street.

Some of La Verne’s elders were small boys who saw the flood of 1938. Sipping coffee at Roberta’s Village Inn Restaurant in our old town business district, they glanced out front windows and told of foot-deep water in the street and spilling over curbs. Merchants on either side built long dams of sandbags to protect their stores.

La Verne was bounded to the west by Firey Avenue (now Wheeler), which was a sunken road about five feet deep. High concrete sides had cutouts for trucks to enter citrus groves. With the rain, grovers dropped planks into slots in the walls so the waters flowed south to Puddingstone.

At the intersection of 4th street – now Bonita Ave. – the owner of a 1934 Packard sedan tried to ford Firey Avenue, but had to bail out. The current swept the car three blocks south to the culvert under the Santa Fe tracks. One old-timer recalls "All of us kids went down to see the car. It was really a mess – full of sand and water and mud."

He also remembers that the east end of 4th ended at the Emerald wash, usually just a shallow arroyo with a trickle of water at the bottom. With the storm, it was a rolling torrent of brown water a hundred feet wide. Spectators heard a continuous roar – the sound of rocks rumbling underwater.

The intense rainfall washed out mountain roads and cabins. Resorts, forestry and prison camps were isolated for days. Some ran out of food. San Dimas Canyon was blocked by washouts below the dam and by slides above. Water filled the reservoir to within ten feet of the spillway, and officials opened outlet gates to allow a huge stream to descend to Puddingstone.

Devastation at Camp Baldy was incredible. About 90 per cent of the cabins in San Antonio Canyon were lost, and two persons were swept away by the flood.

By March 4, 104 were known dead and 150 missing across the Los Angeles area. Thousands were homeless, and damage was estimated at $25 million!

Given the 11.19" of rain recorded before skies cleared. La Verne escaped rather easily. People worked together to clean away the debris and mud.

Cleaning and rebuilding took years. Those washes flowing south from the mountains have become concrete flood channels ready for up to twelve feet of runoff!

Our only evidence of the flood is rust on the legs of the windmill at Heritage Park. The windmill once stood a half-mile north in a lemon grove buried five feet deep with topsoil and sand washed down from the mountains. The grower raised the well pump and set out new trees atop those covered by silt.

A immense dam was built by the Army Corps of Engineers across San Antonio Canyon. It may seem much too big, but it makes sense given the destruction caused by the great flood of 1938.

Historical Society member Walter Ebersole came to La Verne with his family in 1922. Now living at Hillcrest Homes, he is putting his experiences in writing.

The closing-out of my parents’ farm at El Centro, California in preparation to move to La Verne took a two-year period.

In l922, my mother, Rose Ebersole, was temporarily employed as an assistant cook at the Women’s Dormitory at La Verne College. It included living quarters on the basement floor where head cook, Mrs. Hoke and her ten-year-old daughter Harriett, also resided. Since I lived with my mother for that year, I had the dubious honor of living in the women’s dormitory for one year (at the age of seven years).

My Dad, Frank Ebersole, and brother Elbert arrived the next year. The family was together again in a house at 3rd and E Street where my life began in new surroundings.

My grandmother Mary V. (Ebersole) Calvert, lived in the 2300 block of 5th Street. When I was about eleven, I was fascinated by how she used a weaving loom to make house throw-rugs from all kinds of scrap clothing and other cast-off material. She cut this into five-inch strips, and twisted them into heavy cords. Using the shuttle of the loom, she made rugs of any desired length. I willingly cut strips and wound the shuttles for her. That lasted about two weeks until – with the short interest span of youth – my attention was diverted to something else.

Soon after I joined the Church of the Brethren, the construction of the present Sanctuary was begun and it was dedicated in 1930. Most of the labor was donated by members of the church, and funds for other requirements were raised by selling tiny ‘sacks’ of cement. My father was a foreman for the construction of the tower and the choir area which included an indoor baptistry. My small size was put to use by crawling through a completed form for a hollow concrete beam, to wire together steel reinforcing rods which hadn’t been wired together.

I was in the seventh grade in 1928 when a picture was taken by Mr. Bixler, the town photographer, showing four rows of the student body lined up in front of Lincoln Grammar School. Mr. Marion Roynon taught the eighth grade, and later became Superintendent of Schools. Lincoln School was eventually renamed Roynon School because of his large influence in the local schools. My mother put the picture into a frame 10" high and 36" wide. As it seems to be the only one surviving, I recently donated it to the archives at Roynon.

In the late 1920s, when I was about 14, a favorite pastime in late afternoon – until our parents called us in for supper – was to gather in the backyard of the J.P. Dickey home at the corner of 5th and F, where we would play basketball or volleyball until we could see no longer. Players were John and Dayton Dickey, Leland Newcomer and sometimes Gladys Yoder, and others whose names I don’t remember.

To get relief from the hot weather, it was a usual summer event for a number of families to travel to the beach and pitch tents and camp on the sand. It was a relaxing outing, which everyone enjoyed except probably some wives cooking in the sandy environment. I remember my friends and families were Harold Arnold, Roscoe Vaniman, Eugene Blicken staff, my family, and the "Blondy" Moores. Blondy was the ‘metal-shop man in town and he could fix anything that needed fixing. There were, altogether, nine or ten families who stayed for one or two weeks.

Transportation to the beach was quite varied, in Model T Fords, in Chevrolets, Dodges, and Hudsons, but the delight of every kid in the group was to ride in Blondy Moore’s big, open eight-seat Stanley Steamer – a real steam car – which was the fastest, and only one in the neighborhood. A dozen other kids and I would keep asking Blondy to "open her up!" Finally we would come to some open stretches of road that were in good enough condition that he opened her up, and seventy miles an hour in those days was the next thing to flying. Boy, did we enjoy it! I think Blondy enjoyed it as much as we did, because he said it was "Still picking up speed when I shut it down."

Rudolph Fischer was the biology teacher at Bonita High School. He also rented land where he grew wheat and other grains. Some of the acreage where he grew wheat was south of town near an outcropping of rocks called ‘Rocky Point’ south of the present administration building of the airport. One day someone in class asked Mr. Fischer a biology question about his grain field. Soon he digressed from biology and told of his trouble in growing wheat since ground squirrels had burrows near the rocks. He said "The squirrels are stealing my wheat faster than I can grow it!" So the next Saturday, about half the boys in his class showed up at Rocky Point, me included, and sat on the high rocks with our .22 rifles to help reduce his loss of wheat to the ground squirrels!"

In March, 1918 – ninety years ago – La Verne’s packing houses were in full operation and business was good. Citrus fruit was in demand, and Paul Neyron brand oranges brought $8 per box in New York.

But people were deeply concerned with what was known as ‘the Great War’ which had been raging in Europe for three and a half years.

It had been a year since the U.S. had entered the European conflict, siding with France and Great Britain against Germany and other countries in a gigantic mess that historians are still sorting out.

Politicians saw America’s goal as very simple: "..to make liberty supreme throughout the world and to make the atrocities, the infamous and unspeakable crimes against civilization committed by Germany impossible forever in the future!" .

Anything German was suspect. British and American propaganda fostered hatred by detailing atrocities and barbarities committed by the German ‘Huns.’

People - many of German descent - now looked at anyone who even spoke German as a possible subversive.

In 1917, a week or so after the U.S. entered the war, Miss Mary M. Bartruff resigned from her teaching position at Bonita Union High School, where she had taught German and English for ten years..

Now, in March, 1918, a La Verne Leader article told of three men taken into custody in Pomona, arrested because they had failed to register as alien enemies. They were handed over to federal authorities to be interred for the rest of the war.

Recruiting for the U.S. military had been underway for a year, and a ‘La Verne Honor Roll’ printed in the Leader listed forty-one men in the Service. Enlistees chose the branch of the military they liked; those who were drafted had little choice in the matter.

The first two had owned the Lordsburg Cyclery on Third Street and raced cars and motorcycles. Palomares ended up in France, and Hixon was in the Quartermaster corps. Hoover, son of W.I.T. Hoover of La Verne College, was assigned to a Signal Corps unit training pigeons used to carry messages back from the front. As for Jesse Brandt, an honors graduate, he had written the Draft Board that he was a conscientious objector and could not bear arms. He had been arrested and taken away.

Funding the war was a problem, so it was decided to sell ‘Liberty Bonds’ to be redeemed at a future date. Now Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo was launching another spectacular drive to convince Americans to invest in a Third Liberty Loan, buying yet more government bonds to support America’s war against the Huns. He was quoted:

"Every American should pledge anew to his government the full measure of his resources and resolve to make every required sacrifice in the same fervent spirit that impels our gallant sons in the trenches of France and on the waters of the Atlantic to shed their blood in America’s cause."

La Verne’s Thrift Stamp Committee brought Superior Court Judge Weiler to speak at a meeting in the Methodist church. Weller noted that the government was registering ten million men, and there was no question but that victory would be ours. To equip and maintain them, the government had to either tax citizens a sum sufficient to carry on the war or just pass on a portion of the cost to posterity. The latter method had been thought best and just, so more Liberty Bonds were being sold and Thrift Stamp campaigns were underway.

Hollywood stars such as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford criss-crossed the country holding rallies calling on all patriotic Americans to buy Liberty Bonds and stamps. Harry Lauder, a celebrated Scotch comedian, had lost his only son in action. He came to Los Angeles and spoke of his experiences, bringing in donations for the comfort and good cheer of the laddies ‘over there.’

A drawing by Aston Overholtzer, son of S.A. Overholtzer, showed Uncle Sam being supported by three thrift stamps. It was placed on page one of the Leader.

Six agents from the Pomona office of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company would be visiting every La Verne residence on April 2. They hoped to sell at least $5,000 worth of War Savings and Thrift Stamps.

A grand patriotic rally was planned for April 11 at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles. The governor would preside, and two bishops would speak. Famed Ellen Beach Yaw would sing. A hundred seats were reserved for La Verne attendees, who should bring lunch in their machines.

By the end of May, the First National Bank announced that it had sold a total of 432 First, Second, and Third Liberty Loan boards to 194 subscribers – a total of $37,000 for the war effort!

Many articles on the war effort appeared in the weekly La Verne Leader as Editor W.H. Green was now receiving hundreds of linear inches of war patriotic publicity sent out by the California State Council of Defense.

A "Food Saving Program, 1918" was officially announced by the U.S. Food Administration, as wheat was needed to help feed the military and the Allies. Three years of fighting had wreaked havoc with Europe’s food production. The goal was to send the Allies and American soldiers as much food as possible with the most nutritive value: wheat, beef, pork, butter and sugar.

La Verne housewives faced a problem in preparing meals, with increased prices and a bewildering array of voluntary food conservation days which were instituted.

Every week would have two wheatless days (Monday and Thursday), and one wheatless meal every day, two porkless days (Tuesday and Saturday) and one porkless meal every day. Every day was to be a fat-saving day and a sugar-saving day, using fruit, vegetables and potatoes abundantly. Then this changed to just ‘meatless Tuesdays.’

The La Verne Meat Market immediately ran a notice that for the "National Meatless Day:" they would not sell any Beef, Mutton, Pork, or Veal on Tuesdays.

Things were too complicated. A week later, federal officials looked at agricultural production and readjusted the voluntary rationing, temporarily suspending it but asking that all cut use of flour and sugar.

In one of merchant Bob Williams’ columns in the Leader he noted that "Speaking of the number of things that the war deprives us of and the very changes it has brought about— why, I can remember when my wife used to call me ‘Hun’!"

That was just a bad pun, and a bit dated now, but for some reason, that comment about passing the cost of the war to posterity has a very familiar ring to it. – GB